Ward Halloween Party

We had our yearly ward Halloween party last Saturday night. As usual, there was a great turn out and the night was full of great company, delicious food, and fun.

Brian went over to the church early to help set up all the tables, chairs and the stage in the gym. I came about an hour later, when the party was supposed to start.

After the trunk or treat, held in the church's parking lot, everyone came back inside for the potluck dinner. Per tradition, there was a chili cook-off. This year there were nine different kinds, all unique and delicious. We were there early enough that Brian was selected as one of the judges. He was ecstatic. Food judging is right up his alley. Annie and Matt were the other two judges. Here are the three of them, ready to start their tasting. 

Nine samples, all numbered and organized along with his ballot. 

Brian took the judging very seriously -- he is a professional reviewer, you know. 

Food is a serious thing to Brian, and he was very thorough in carrying out his judging duties. There was some wafting before the tasting. And then some re-tasting. They had a lot of fun, and it was a hard choice for them. 

While the judges were finalizing their votes, the rest of us helped ourselves to the food. It was so hard to choose which chili to try. So I took a small scoop of three different ones. They were each different, but so delicious. I'm glad I wasn't a judge, because I would have voted them all winners.

Here are our esteemed judges announcing the winners. The winning recipe was made by the Kennelly family, the runner up was the DeLeon's chili and the second place winner was the Briggs' chili. I need to get some recipes!

During all of this fun, there was a lot of costume admiring. 

There were so many fun costumes. I took a not too great video of the Costume Parade. Here are some clips I put together to show you the highlights.

After more mingling, dessert was served. Angela Smith made these cute mini cupcakes, and Matt brought a tray of cookies, including these pumpkin sugar cookies. They were all delicious.

There was a doughnut-on-a-string eating contest, but Brian and I were full from dinner so we didn't participate. There were three rounds and then a final round where the three winners faced off. It was a lot of fun watching everyone try to eat them as fast as possible. It made for a lot of laughs.

After the costume parade, where everyone who wished to participate lined up and took their turn on stage to show off their costumes, we all cast our votes for the best, most creative, and scariest costume. Our table was put to work once again, and we counted all the votes. Brian helped announce the winners and hand out the prizes. The Lariego family won best costume (Dr. Octopus), the Glass family won most creative (they dressed up as Land Girls from the BBC production by the same name) and the Martins won scariest (Ariel was a skeleton and Steve was some sort of pumpkin-headed fellow).

Our costumes weren't that exciting this year. We couldn't think of anything, and didn't really want to go buy costumes this year. I actually saw this idea used by a friend on Facebook, and we copied it. Sorry Natalie! Simple, but it worked. Our non-costume costumes. And yes, we didn't have any shirts without writing or pictures on them, so we're wearing them inside out.

After helping clean up, we walked home. The night was warm and we didn't need to wear out jackets. We have such an amazing ward, and they really do feel like our family here in NYC. I'm so grateful for that.